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An aspect of Alexander-Murray will exacerbate an under-appreciated flaw in ACA requirements for plans considered “catastrophic plans.”

Alexander-Murray will allow anyone to have a “catastrophic plan” as such plan is defined by ACA. ACA limits enrollment in these plans to enrollees under 30 years of age or enrollees who have a waiver. Alexander-Murray would do away with these limitations. So far so good.

Another ACA limitation on these plans — found in ACA section 1302(e) — is that the plans will provide no benefits until the enrollee’s annual out of pocket limit has been reached, except that the plan must cover “at least 3 primary care visits.”

This will harmful to patients of DPC practices and is bad policy. It essentially forces primary care to be handled in-network — great for the insurance companies but not for the patients orthe doctors.

Ideally the requirement should be struck from ACA. Alternately, a small change along the lines of this or something similar [in brackets] might help fix this problem:

(B)the plan provides—
(ii)coverage for at least three primary care visits, [unless the enrollee is separately contracted with a direct primary care physician, in which case the plan will refund to the enrollee an amount equal to the value of such coverage.]

Here they go again. Once again the AMA is promoting what’s best for the big government / big insurance / big hospital cartel instead of advocating solutions that will truly empower patients, physicians, and increase access to high-quality, low-cost care.

IP4PI founder Craig M. Wax, D.O. presents on Capitol Hill at the March 2017 meeting of the National Physicians’ Council for Healthcare Policy. Learn more about NPCHP efforts at http://npchcp.org. Read a synopsis of the principles here and view slides here.

“This map shows that insurance options on the Exchanges continue to disappear. Plan options are down from last year and, in some areas, Americans will have no coverage options on the Exchanges, based on the current data.”

“This is yet another failing report card for the Exchanges. The American people have fewer insurance choices and in some counties no choice at all. CMS is working with state departments of insurance and issuers to find ways to provide relief and help restore access to healthcare plans, but our actions are by no means a long-term solution to the problems we’re seeing with the Insurance Exchanges,” explains CMS Administrator Seema Verma.